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The "Trump's actions are impeachable, but that doesn't make impeachment worth it" thread.

The "Trump's actions are impeachable, but that doesn't make impeachment worth it" thread.

Let’s stay on that for a second. Let’s imagine the president—and I don’t mean Trump, but any president—announced shortly after being elected that he had actually been a secret Muslim all along. Would that be impeachable? Yes. Should he be impeached for it? Well, that’s a subject for debate. There’s nothing illegal about or wrong with being a Muslim. Lying about it is a problem, but maybe he or she had a good reason. If the newly elected president were a truly radical Muslim with sympathies for terror groups—again, nothing illegal there—I suspect that president would be and should be impeached. But if this president were just a peaceful and patriotic Muslim (like the majority of American Muslims are), I think the case for impeachment is much, much weaker. Why not just wait and see what the president does and let the voters render their verdict in four years?

Now imagine it’s not 2020 but 1920 or even 1820. My hunch is that this wouldn’t even be up for debate. Articles of impeachment would fly out of Congress like an angry cat out of a clothes dryer. Forget being a Muslim. Imagine it’s the 1850s, during the height of the Know Nothing era, and a newly sworn-in president revealed that he was a Catholic. Hearings on whether someone could be president and loyal to the Pope in Rome would start the next morning.

Again, there’s nothing illegal about being Catholic (sorry Jimmy Blaine). And while it might say something unpleasant about America that people would want to impeach a president for being Catholic (or, back then, secretly mixed-race), there’s nothing stopping Congress from impeaching a president for any damned thing it wants, including violations of cultural norms or moral taboos.

This is one of the things that always bothered me about the Clinton impeachment. Because we treat the law as a kind of secular theology, the Lewinsky scandal was contorted into a perfectly legalistic affair. Whether or not Clinton should have been impeached is a complicated argument with pros and cons on each side. But the idea that his conduct in the Oval Office—while perfectly legal—wasn’t impeachable always struck me as absurd. (Judge Bork agreed with me, by the way.) One of the funny things about how people have changed in the last two decades is that back then, religious conservatives were adamant about this point and feminists were outraged by it. Now, if we had a replay of the same fact pattern, in the wake of Trump and #MeToo, the arguments would also surely be completely reversed.

What's funny about all of this is that in many ways Republicans should want to get rid of Trump more than Democrats. If they were smart of thinking rationally, that is. Particularly people who are actually conservative, and even more so religious conservatives. Trump is neither of those things. He's a stain on the party and on the country. And they want to support that? Pence is far better from a conservative/religious conservative standpoint.

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What's funny about all of this is that in many ways Republicans should want to get rid of Trump more than Democrats. If they were smart of thinking rationally, that is. Particularly people who are actually conservative, and even more so religious conservatives. Trump is neither of those things. He's a stain on the party and on the country. And they want to support that? Pence is far better from a conservative/religious conservative standpoint.

Pence is so sold out as to be completely useless in any real reformation. Reform is going to have to come from the outside. The Republican Party at large doesn't believe anything anymore but Orange Man Good. Maybe it never really did.

Unfortunately, equal and opposite is mostly the story on the other side. A "put the Kool-aid down" independent run is what rational people should support at this point. A dog and pony impeachment show will only make that possibility more difficult.

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Pence is so sold out as to be completely useless in any real reformation. Reform is going to have to come from the outside. The Republican Party at large doesn't believe anything anymore but Orange Man Good. Maybe it never really did.

Unfortunately, equal and opposite is mostly the story on the other side. A "put the Kool-aid down" independent run is what rational people should support at this point. A dog and pony impeachment show will only make that possibility more difficult.

It's all broken man. Ever year, those somewhere in the middle desire a 'middle-ish' candidate, but there really isn't one, so they sort go back to voting the way they slightly lean, left or right. One party gains power, changes things, the other party eventually gets power, goes in and changes things back, and so on and son on. It's like watching a really long volley in tennis. Back and forth. The best thing for America is for each party to give a little, lean to the middle a little. Not gonna happen in our lifetime, that's for sure.

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It's all broken man. Ever year, those somewhere in the middle desire a 'middle-ish' candidate, but there really isn't one, so they sort go back to voting the way they slightly lean, left or right. One party gains power, changes things, the other party eventually gets power, goes in and changes things back, and so on and son on. It's like watching a really long volley in tennis. Back and forth. The best thing for America is for each party to give a little, lean to the middle a little. Not gonna happen in our lifetime, that's for sure.

It's going to have to get bad enough. I think '16 should have been. But I don't think most people, especially independents, paid enough attention to know just how bad it was going to be.

Hopefully the brainless ubernarcissist vs the free money outlawer of insurance and sitter of federal minders on every major corporate board will finally get people to say enough.

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Clinton wasn't impeached for getting a BJ...he was impeached for lying under oath in a lawsuit from woman that would later pose in Penthouse Magazine. It was a bull**** move.

There was also witness tampering. General obstruction. Still, if you know you don't have the conviction votes (2/3rds), it's just a stupid exercise. Even dumber when your opposition actually controls the Senate. They're going to put Trump's opponents on trial, not Trump. Nobody's minds will change. There's an election to decide anyway. Politically idiotic to go through with this. But I think Pelosi's smart enough to back burner it.

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It's all broken man. Ever year, those somewhere in the middle desire a 'middle-ish' candidate, but there really isn't one, so they sort go back to voting the way they slightly lean, left or right. One party gains power, changes things, the other party eventually gets power, goes in and changes things back, and so on and son on. It's like watching a really long volley in tennis. Back and forth. The best thing for America is for each party to give a little, lean to the middle a little. Not gonna happen in our lifetime, that's for sure.

I think Klobuchar is the closest to this but the Dems are too stupid to put forth a centrist candidate. They aren't going to lose votes to Trump but sure as hell aren't going to pull votes from Trump with a Warren or Biden. They stand the best chance at pulling from Trump if putting forth a moderate. But they won't. Just keep plugging along with hopelessly polarizing candidates.

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I think Klobuchar is the closest to this but the Dems are too stupid to put forth a centrist candidate. They aren't going to lose votes to Trump but sure as hell aren't going to pull votes from Trump with a Warren or Biden. They stand the best chance at pulling from Trump if putting forth a moderate. But they won't. Just keep plugging along with hopelessly polarizing candidates.

This statement is well grounded in the status quo: "The candidate who successfully builds the biggest tent straddling the middle - wins".

That's been true for the last 50 years - maybe longer. But that norm has been shattered. No Dem is going to pull from Trump's base. At all.

So the Dems would be extremely foolish to try to accommodate them.

The Dems win this thing by exiting their own base - which is quite a bit larger than Trump's, but traditionally less likely to actually show up and vote.

In addition, if they can turn out maybe two in ten of that half of the country that never votes - well then you're talking landslide.

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I think Klobuchar is the closest to this but the Dems are too stupid to put forth a centrist candidate. They aren't going to lose votes to Trump but sure as hell aren't going to pull votes from Trump with a Warren or Biden. They stand the best chance at pulling from Trump if putting forth a moderate. But they won't. Just keep plugging along with hopelessly polarizing candidates.

I hate to break the news to you,but that was Hillary Clintons game plan and it didn’t work. Any of the candidates can beat trump and they won’t have to pull any trump voters.

When push comes to shove, most people don't want to burn everything down.

How many times are democrats going to electrocute themselves on the health care fence before they figure out they need to reform at the margins and quit trying to top down socialize one of the nation's biggest industries. On a foundation of truly famous levels of bureaucratic incompetence.

When push comes to shove, most people don't want to burn everything down.

How many times are democrats going to electrocute themselves on the health care fence before they figure out they need to reform at the margins and quit trying to top down socialize one of the nation's biggest industries. On a foundation of truly famous levels of bureaucratic incompetence.

Just in case you're not aware how lawmaking works, without the Senate none of these things are going to happen. And they probably wouldn't happen even if the Dems did have the Senate. But color me unsurprised that you've fallen for the Fox News scare tactics.

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The key thing about 2020 is it’s going to be a referendum on trump.
trump is going to lose votes to the democrat nominee, and most importantly will lose votes to those that stay home & not vote.
trumps base isn’t 60M strong.
Come 2020 every issue will take a back seat to the cancer known as trump.